Although digital cameras are becoming more and more prevalent, many users still use film cameras to record images. After processing, the negatives and the paper pictures or photographs are returned to the photographer. The photographer may then decide to convert some of the pictures into digital pictures. This conversion is typically accomplished by using a scanner. Scanners are directly attached to a computer or computing like device (e.g., set top box), which is typically located in the home or at work.
The photographer typically reviews photographs in a location that is distant from the computer. For example, the home computer may be located in a home office, while the photographer reviews the photographs in the kitchen or family room. The photographer may review the photographs in the car after purchasing the prints at the store. Thus, the photographer or user is not typically near the scanner when the user reviews the photographs. Consequently, scanning decisions that the user made regarding photographs cannot be readily carried out, but rather must wait until the user is in the same room as the scanner. Thus, unless the decisions were written down in some manner, the decisions are likely to be forgotten, delayed or postponed, or confused with other decisions. For example, the user may decide to digitize some pictures for use in projects such as web pages, and not others; to e-mail some digitized pictures to family or friends and not others; and/or store other digitized pictures on recordable media (CD, floppy disk, zip disk, hard disk etc.) and/or digitize and reprint using a local printer or an Internet printing service.
Also, a person may wish to obtain copies of a photograph that belongs to another photographer. This would require the person or the photographer to either order copies of the photograph at a store, or take the photograph to a computer that included an attached scanner. For example, a user visiting a relative's house may want to obtain copies of photographs that belong to the relative.
In both scenarios, the user is at a disadvantage, because the user cannot make scan copies of photographs when the user is viewing the photographs and mark them with a desired disposition. The user must either take the photographs to a store to be copied, or take the photographs to a computer that has an attached scanner.